Natural Philosophy. — Meteorology. 197 
7' East. The mean of the observations, taken before noon, from 
the 13th to the 21st of August 1818, was - 26° 40' 0" 
and of those taken afternoon, - - 27 1 20 
Difference, - 0 21 20 
— Journal of Sciences^ N° 17. p. 99- 
13. Daily Variation of the Needle at Edinburgh. — Andrew 
Waddel, Esq. E. R. S. E. has just erected an apparatus at Her- 
mitage Hill, near Leith, for measuring the diurnal variation of 
the needle. The results of his observations will be regularly 
communicated in this Journal.. 
METEOROLOGY. 
14. Meteoric Stones. — The celebrated M. le Marquis de la 
Place, whose name was the principal support of the lunar ori- 
gin of meteoric stones, has now abandoned this hypothesis, and 
embraced that which gives them a more distant origin. In a 
recent paper on the lunar tables, read before the French Board of 
Longitude, on the 29th March 1820, he asks, “ are the motions 
of the planets, and the satellites sensibly altered by the attrac- 
tion of comets, and by the impulse of small bodies, similar to 
meteoric stones, which we see falling upon the earth, and which 
appear to come from the depths of celestial space.” 
15. Extreme Heat at Bagdad. — It appears by letters from 
Bagdad, dated the 25th August 1819, that the heat of the sum- 
mer there has exceeded any thing that was ever experienced in 
that country. “ The thermometers, placed in the coolest part 
of the house, rose to 120°, and at midnight were sometirales at 
108° in the open air. There had been in the commencement of 
August a storm, accompanied by a heavy rain, an event quite 
unprecedented, and the effect of it, on the burning soil already 
overheated by the fierce simoom, was similar to that of the hot- 
test steam bath. Multitudes of people, both in the country and 
in the streets of the city, dropped down dead from the intense 
heat. A small caravan lost 22 persons in this manner in the 
last three days of its journey towards Bagdad. The river rose 
in one night 7^ feet above its ordinary level, and became of a 
turbid-red colour, and the waters were so offensive, that it was 
